


This Time Around

by Taibor



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Boys with feelings, Courtship, Derek is super awkward, Fluff, M/M, Rebuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-08
Updated: 2013-01-08
Packaged: 2017-11-24 03:24:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,117
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/629828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Taibor/pseuds/Taibor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Stiles tries really hard and Derek has no idea what to do about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	This Time Around

They paint the door first. A bright, crisp shade of green that makes Derek think of leaves pushing slowly out of the earth.

It’s not a fresh start, but it’s as close as he'll ever get and for now he supposes that it’ll have to do.

\---

It starts the day Derek walks into the train depot and sees Isaac sitting on the floor with an enormous glass pan in his lap, shoveling lasagna into his mouth at an alarming rate.

“What is that?” Derek asks because he can’t think of a single reason Isaac would have an entire lasagna.

Isaac looks up at him and the expression on his face is bewildered and a little bit gleeful. “Stiles gave it to me.”

“Stiles.” Derek’s tone is flat and he hopes it conveys how unimpressed he is with this new development. Isaac hums absently in affirmation before going back to practically inhaling food into his bloodstream, Jesus. “Why is Stiles giving you lasagna?”

“I don’t know. Do you want some?”

Derek shrugs before thinking, yeah, he could eat.

They finish the whole lasagna in twenty minutes and don’t talk about it again.

\---

The next day Stiles shows up at the old Hale house with two cardboard cups full to the brim with steaming coffee and a box of doughnuts.

“Hey,” he calls when he sees Derek sitting on the porch steps. It’s about seven in the morning on a Saturday and Derek has no idea what the fuck is going on. Stiles sits next to him on the step, places the box of doughnuts between them, and hands him a cup. “Hey, this is for you. I didn’t know how you liked your coffee so I brought some little tubs of creamer and some sugar packets, um, they’re in the box with the doughnuts.”

“What the fuck is going on.” Is all Derek can think to say.

Stiles looks confused. “What?”

“How did you know I would be here?” Derek asks.

“Where else would you be?” Stiles says cheerfully. “I figured you would come here to brood.”

“I don’t brood.” Derek snaps defensively. He reflexively takes a sip of the coffee in his hands and finds that it’s bitter and black. Opening the cardboard box next to him reveals half a dozen doughnuts, three miniature tubs of coffee creamer, and a few packets of sugar. Derek dumps the creamer into his cup, takes another sip, and turns his attention back to Stiles. “I still don’t understand what you’re doing here.”

Stiles sighs dramatically. “Look, I know it’s written in blood somewhere that we’re not allowed to communicate peaceably unless we are in the process of almost dying, but I figured we should give it a shot anyways.”

“You want to communicate. With me.” Derek looks at Stiles with an expression of muted horror.

Stiles takes a powdered sugar doughnut out and stuffs it into his mouth. “Yup,” he says, popping the ‘p’ obnoxiously.

Derek stands up slowly. He glares half-heartedly at Stiles, scoops up the box of doughnuts, and stalks off into the woods. Stiles grins and watches him go.

\---

“Dude, I think you need to fix up this house” Stiles says a week later. He has coffee with him, but no doughnuts, and Derek’s coffee is made the way he likes it with the right amount of cream and no sugar. He’s not sure what to think about it.

Derek’s throat feels dry and his claws are tearing through the skin of his palms, but his voice is steady when he says, “Just go home, Stiles.”

But of course Stiles ignores him and does whatever the fuck he wants, which in this case is to stay put and look around the charred remains of the room with calculating, narrowed eyes. Derek manfully resists the urge to just pick him up and toss him out. “It was understandable at first, what with everything in a ten mile radius trying to tear us to bloody shreds and eat us for lunch, but now you don’t have that excuse. This house is pretty much being held up by the power of your supreme manpain and I get it, I do, but it should probably also be held up by wood and physics.”

“Stiles.” It’s more of a snarl than an actual word, but it gets the point across.

“I’m just saying. Food for thought. I know you still hang out at the train depot, which is an excellent choice, by the way, for you and your pack of teenage werewolves, but maybe you should look into, I don’t know, getting an apartment or hiring a contractor or something.” 

Derek thinks about responding for about half of a second. Then he goes with his original instinct, throws Stiles over one shoulder, and dumps him outside.

\---

He’s back again the next Saturday with coffee and bag of brownies. Derek resolves not to speak to him at all.

“I still think you should fix up your house.” He greets. “I know I also suggested looking for an apartment, but I think it would be better to stay here, you know?”

Derek frowns and takes the brownies out of Stiles’ hands. They smell homemade and absolutely fantastic and Derek has no plans to give them back.

“Also,” Stiles continues, “can I have my lasagna pan back? I really doubt you’re using it since you don’t even have an _oven_ and I can’t make any more without it.”

“Why did you give it to us in the first place?” Derek asks, completely forgetting his decision not to engage Stiles verbally. He registers what Stiles seems to be implying and perks up against his better judgment. “Are you making another lasagna?”

“Maybe.” Stiles smiles soft and small and Derek has the sudden urge to touch the corner of his mouth where it turns up. He blinks slowly and thinks, _what the fuck_ , and then, _oh, shit, no._

They don’t say anything to each other after that, but this time it’s Derek who watches as Stiles walks away.

\---

Next week Stiles hands him another lasagna and Derek has to fight the urge to smile.

\---

He doesn't mean for it to become some kind of habit or tradition or anything, but Derek starts to look forwards to Saturdays. He starts to show up a little earlier and linger a little longer. He listens as Stiles talks and pays attention to the things he says. He answers Stiles’ questions, starts to ask some of his own.

Stiles mentions fixing up the house every week, but Derek never says anything about it at all. 

\---

“Where are you going?” Derek asks as he watches Boyd is put on his jacket and Erica touch up her eyeliner. Isaac is waiting for them impatiently across the room, shifting his weight from one foot to the other.

“Movie night at Stilinki’s.” Erica answers breezily. She shoots him a feral grin.

“What.”

Her smile gets even wider. “Yeah. We weren't going to go, but Stiles said we could pick the movies _and_ he would make cookies. Oh, and he wanted us to give you this.” She fishes a folded up slip of notebook paper out of her bag and hands it to him.

Derek opens the paper and finds a list of phone numbers. For contractors.

When he looks up again his betas are gone. 

\---

That Saturday Stiles hands him a Tupperware container filled with chocolate chip cookies. “These are left over from movie night. Sort of.”

Derek raises an eyebrow. “Sort of?”

“Well you wolves are kind of all eating machines, so by _leftover_ I really mean I hid them in my room and wouldn't let Scott eat them when he realized they were there. It was a struggle, he used the puppy eyes, but I prevailed and here are the spoils of my victory.”

Derek peals back the top of the container and eats a cookie.

“So did you get my list?” Stiles asks a few moments later.

“No.”

“No as in you didn’t get it or no as in you’re not going to look into it?”

Derek nods and eats a second cookie.

“You haven’t actually answered my question.” Stiles points out.

"Why are you so obsessed with me fixing up my house?"

Stiles hesitates before saying slowly, “I think it would make you happier.”

And Derek has no idea what to say to that. He can’t remember factoring his happiness into any decision since before the fire. “So?” 

Stiles makes a frustrated noise. "What the hell do you mean, so?"

Derek shrugs. "Why does it matter?”

“Why does it- of course it matters! You matter, don’t you know that? You not spending all of your time miserable matters. At least it does to me.”

Derek looks at Stiles for a long moment before finally saying, “fixing my house isn’t going to fix me. I’m not some project you can take on and if that’s what’s been going on with the food and the coffee and everything, you’re wasting your time.”

“What kind of asshole do you take me for? I’m not trying to fix you, jackass, you aren’t broken. Trying to make your life a little easier is not me making you into a project and it isn’t a waste of my time.” 

Stiles is flushed and Derek has never felt anything like this before. He wants to say, _I don’t know what this is, but you make me happier than I ever thought I could be_. He wants to say, _no one has told me that I mattered in a long, long time._

Instead he turns and runs.

\---

It takes a little maneuvering, but Derek manages to climb through the window the next day while holding two coffees and a blueberry muffin.

Stiles blinks at him from his desk in confusion. "Hey Derek, um, what's up?"

Derek doesn't know how to say _you've managed to carve out a space for yourself in my life and now I think about your smell and voice and heartbeat all the time and I don’t know what to do about it_ so he just hands Stiles everything he's carrying, including his own coffee, which he then awkwardly takes back.

"Okay," Stiles says faintly. "I see you brought me coffee. And a muffin. Which I am now going to eat the hell out of."

They stare at each other for a few moments and Derek can't remember feeling so uncomfortable in his entire life. His skin itches all over and he is literally seconds from making a break for it. Again.

"So," Stiles takes an enormous bite of the muffin and Derek tries really, really hard not to think of his mouth or his lips or his entire face in general. "I was going to watch a movie. You can stick around if you want."

Derek nods slowly.

They watch Indiana Jones together shoulder to shoulder, Stiles' laptop resting on both of their knees. Later, sitting on the porch steps of the Hale house, Derek tries not to panic. The only thing he can remember about the movie is the warmth of Stiles against his side and their scents mixing lazily on the sheets.

He takes the list of contractors Stiles made for him out of his jacket pocket and looks at it for a long time. 

\---

The next day Derek waits for the Sheriff to pull out of the driveway on his way to the station before knocking politely on the front door. When Stiles opens it he literally gapes in shock.

“Did you just use my front door? Is something wrong?”

Derek slips into the room, closes the door behind him, and crowds Stiles up against the wall.

“W-what are you doing?” Stiles asks, fingers trembling as they reach for Derek’s biceps. He looks hopeful and terrified all at once.

Derek leans slowly forwards, trailing the tip of his nose across the skin where Stiles’ neck meets his shoulder and grins. “I’m not hiring any contractors.”

“What.” Stiles sounds incredibly confused.

“My family built the house originally. It's- it means something, it's important. If we’re going to rebuild we’ll have to do it together, as a pack. It needs to be done right.”

Stiles beams up at him and it makes something in Derek’s chest loosen.

Stiles sighs happily. “Awesome. I am so completely down for this. Are you going to kiss me now? Because not going to lie, I appreciate you being all up in my space, but I've been waiting like forever.”

Derek leans down and kisses the hell out of him.

\---

They rebuild together. They paint the door first and Stiles smiles the entire time soft and small and sweet.

**Author's Note:**

> My sister has been rapping horribly in the other room for almost the entire time I've been writing this. Literally a non stop stream of Gym Class Heroes and Will.i.am. That's my excuse for everything. I don't even know.


End file.
